DISSEMINATED HISTOPLASMOSIS WITH ORAL MANIFESTATION IN A PATIENT WITH CROHN’S DISEASE

Abstract

Histoplasmosis and Crohn’s Disease (CD) can resemble each other in clinical characteristics, thus complicating the diagnosis by the doctor or dentist. Through a clinical case, this work aims to demonstrate the diagnostic challenge of a single histoplasmosis lesion in the oral cavity in a patient with chronic granulomatous disease. The histopathological examination found it to be an oral lesion resulting from a specific granulomatous process, subsequently diagnosed as histoplasmosis after microbiological culture of the lesion. The systemic medical evaluation did not identify lesions compatible with histoplasmosis in other organs. After appropriate therapy, the fungal infection was remission, and therapeutic follow-up of the autoimmune disease was performed. The co-occurrence of histoplasmosis in patients with CD is a possibility to be considered, especially due to the potential state of immunosuppression associated with this condition. Although the anatomopathological examination may not detect the microorganism in the tissue sample, this case demonstrated that microbiological culture should be considered an essential complementary examination for diagnosing deep mycoses.

Keywords

• histoplasmosis
• disseminated fungal infection
• oral diseases
• autoimmune disease
• crohn’s disease